Brittle
by Kamikaze Pedestrian
Summary: Rin shares her nightmares, tells them in a voice that sometimes hitches when Hyakurin’s thumb moves a little higher up her leg. Hyakurin shares nothing but touches and friendly sarcasm. Hyakurin/Rin


She breaks it while it's still brittle, while it can be shattered with barely more than a flick of a finger.

Hyakurin stays the night at the Asano dojo and she wakes in the morning with a wide yawn, her hair tousled. Rin is already up, and her braids are neat and proper.

She kneels beside Hyakurin's bedside, hands in her lap, picking at the hem of her kimono. Her own futon is rolled up and breakfast is ready, two trays with steaming soup and perfectly white rice standing a few feet away.

Her limbs feel heavy and stiff from lack of sleep. This night, just as every night, Hyakurin's dreams kept them both up. These days Rin snaps awake a second before the screaming starts. Intuition, perhaps. Perhaps a forced habit.

These nights, when Hyakurin bolts upright, eyes wide in panic, Rin hurriedly crawls on her hands and knees over the tatami mat and closes the distance between them without a word. When she puts an arm around the older woman's shoulders she can feel her shivering. Rin is patient enough to wait her out, stroking Hykaurin's back with calm, soft motions until her breathing isn't quite so loud anymore, until her sobs are silenced and her tears stop falling. She doesn't know what Hyakurin sees when she dreams. Rin shares her nightmares, tells them in whispers when Hyakurin no longer tugs at her hair and has one hand on Rin's knee, circling her thumb, making creases in the fabric of her clothes. Rin shares her nightmares, tells them in a voice that sometimes hitches when Hyakurin's thumb moves a little higher up her leg. Hyakurin shares nothing but touches and friendly sarcasm.

In the chill of the morning the dreams seem bleak and distant, transparent in the sharp sunlight. Hyakurin's face is calm and her smile when she catches sight of Rin kneeling by her side is soft and a little coy. All that tells of the waking hours are the ever present faint blue shadows beneath her eyes. Her nightmares will never go away, they will follow her for as long as she lives, be the first thing on her mind when she lifts her head off the pillow each morning and the last image she'll see before she closes her eyes for good. Rin knows this, as well as she knows the demons of her own nightmares will weaken with time until they're nothing but crooked old dogs, toothless and bowlegged.

After the past weeks, after the tunnels and the carnage, after returning from a place she thinks of as hell, there are many things she knows, things that she only used to sense as vague notions but now feel as strong reassurances, all lined up before her, easy to decipher. Another piece of her childhood was lost under Edo castle, swept away by the flood. Perhaps it was the last of it.

Now, after the past weeks, after the carnage and the flood, she looks at Hyakurin with new eyes. Rin looks at her long, slender fingers stuffing her pipe and her lips around the mouthpiece, red and full. Rin looks at her chest heaving for each breath and finds it much too hard to remove her gaze. Rin looks at her well-shaped legs, at a pale scar right above her left knee, and she wonders since when the sight made her mouth go dry and her heart beat faster.

Now, after the past weeks, she thinks of Hyakurin in new ways. Rin thinks of the accidental encounters, always so convenient, always in the nick of time. Rin thinks of the words, the soft-spoken and the harsh, and finds them much more intimate than she realized before. Rin thinks of the hand on her knee, of the many thousand little touches, and she wonders when she finally understood.

And this is how she knows, almost before it happens, that when Hyakurin pulls away the covers and gets up from her futon she will crawl on her hands and knees over the tatami mat and close the distance between them without a word. This is how she knows that when Hyakurin leans forward to tuck a few stray strands of hair behind her ear, her fingers will linger, tracing the line of her jaw. This is why, when Hyakurin presses her lips against Rin's, she doesn't pull away in surprise. This is how she knows the question in Hyakurin's eyes when they look into hers, and this is how she knows what answer she has to give.

"You're the one who told me to never fall in love with a samurai."

The tenderness in Hyakurin's smile gives way for amusement.

"Honey, I'm no samurai."

"You would be if you were a man," Rin retorts, and her voice is so painfully steady, so inexcruciably loud in her ears.

After the past weeks, she knows where she's going, knows which path will lead her to her goal. She knows who will come with her. She knows who can not.

"If I were a man. Of course." Hyakurin's smile doesn't falter as she stands. Perhaps it does when she turns around to leave. Rin can't tell. "Ain't that right, Sweets."

There is a sudden cold as the door is pushed open and then Rin is alone, listening to the sound of steps on the porch becoming fainter and fainter.

And just like that she breaks it, while it's still brittle, picking the shards from the floor, careful not to cut her fingers, and tucking them into her sleeve.


End file.
